It's Just a crush!
by greenstuff2
Summary: Companion piece to Dear Diary. Captain James is struggling with his feelings
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: All rights belong to Tony Grounds and the BBC.**

He knew he should say something, or at least tell Kinders to say something. She was breaking regulations leaving her hair tumbling loose around her face like that instead of tying it off her neck, but she looked so cute in the tinsel coronet she was wearing that he didn't want to spoil the view and it was Christmas after all.

What was it about her that made him feel like a tongue-tied fifteen year old faced with his first ever crush? When he was out on patrol or carrying out any stuff that was required of him either with his own lot or the ANA, he was fine. Focussed and in full control of his own, and everyone else's, behaviour and actions, the ultimate professional army officer, but when work was over it was a different matter.

Physically, she hit every mark as far as he was concerned. Tiny and slender, her body was well toned with a flat stomach, beautiful legs and surprisingly full breasts for someone so small. All of this, together with a very pretty face, a waterfall of long brown hair and a pair of huge, expressive green/grey eyes meant that when the down time came he was in deep trouble. Oh he was sure he had managed to hide it well, not least from her, but watching her clown around with Fingers and then share a hymn sheet with him during the short service had made the envy he felt when she was with one of the lads bite very hard. He knew that there was nothing going on between Molly and any of the lads, she treated them all as extra brothers, and she never, ever flirted, but he couldn't help but be surprised that he appeared to be the only one that found her overwhelmingly attractive. He was in so deep that his enjoyment of Christmas swung from one extreme to the other depending on how she was feeling. He was happy when she was teasing him as their waiter, then envious again when she and some of the others got into an uncontrollable fit of the giggles. What the hell was so funny? and very anxious about her when she said that she didn't want to call home. He was sure that there was some problem at home, probably with her father. She never mentioned him, only her mother, her grandmother, who she seemed to be close to, and her siblings and yet he knew from her personal file that her father was still listed as her NoK., along with her mother at their home address. His happiness escalated again when he sat with her enjoying her happily infectious laughter as she blatantly cheated at the football tournament . This was his fourth Christmas in a row in Afghan, and apart from missing Sam dreadfully, this was by far the happiest time he had spent. The misery of jealousy returned later in the evening when she was dancing with Fingers, he so wanted to scoop her up and kiss her until she was breathless ….. Oh for fuck's sake, he was her boss!

Every emotion he was experiencing was against regulations! If anyone had been able to read minds he would have been in deep shit, so he had begun to wonder who'd decided on these bloody regulations. Who the hell had decided that it was realistic to put a mixed bunch of young, fit soldiers away from home in a boiling pot of tension and intense fear, mixed with periods of intense boredom, and then say you can't develop feelings for each other? And if you do, you can't express those feelings or act on them in any way. Oh he knew all the reasons for the rules and had never questioned them before, but now they struck him as madness!

He told himself that it was purely physical, that they didn't have anything in common. He couldn't see her at formal dinners or at poetry readings, although to be fair he didn 't do those himself any more, but he had enjoyed them once upon a time. He told himself that it was because she was a lone female in his totally male world, that it was because he hadn't really had any female company in his life since he had split from Rebecca, that he was lonely and that a couple of one night stands and a short term physical relationship which had ended when he was deployed, did not count as a love life, so he was frustrated! He could tell himself anything he liked, it didn't make a blind bit of difference because one of the biggest problems he had was that he liked her so much, she made him laugh more than anyone else had in a long, long time. Life had been so much easier at the beginning when he had been so thoroughly misjudging her.

…

She was at it again! Frightening the life out him by wandering off to chat to the kid she had got fond of. How many more times was he going to have to tell her not to get so involved with the locals, not to put herself in danger and not to answer him back when he was reminding her of standing orders? When he caught up with her he'd wanted to behave like some parent whose kid had got lost, he wanted to hug her and kiss her with relief, and then slap her for worrying him, so he shouted at her. But he didn't want to slap her, he wanted to kiss her, then kiss her some more, he definitely wasn't her parent, and she definitely wasn't a child, she was one of his squaddies and he had a duty of care and this was killing him. He was her boss for fuck's sake.

…..

Smurf's return from sick leave bought a whole new set of worries. He had welcomed him back with a warning about his future conduct, pointing out what he owed her and trying to make it plain that he wouldn't tolerate any more of the shit Smurf had handed out to her just before he got shot. His big worry was that Smurf tended to hero worship him and because of that he watched him all the time. That, coupled with the fact that he was more perceptive than the others, meant that he would almost certainly notice that his eyes were on a bit of string where she was concerned. He would have to be very, very careful.

She was chatting and laughing with Smurf while he made her a cuppa provoking the usual bite of jealousy, except that it was a little bit different this time. He could have sworn she was watching him work out in the makeshift gym, staring at him in fact. Hell, that was wishful thinking if anything was, he was her boss for fuck's sake.

…

They made routine patrols over the next few days and he made a superhuman effort to control his need to watch her all the time. He told himself that this was a crush that would pass, that all he had to do was to try and see her as one of the lads, to laugh and joke and take the piss and eventually he would weather the storm she was creating in him. He would follow army regulations to the letter and it would all sort itself out. He actually felt that it was beginning to work for him until he woke up at stupid o'clock in the throes of an 'X-rated' dream and desperately needing a cold shower, for all the world as though he was back to being sixteen.

**Authors notes: Have focussed purely on his thoughts and feelings rather than diary the day to day events and have tried to use some of the same words and phrases as in Dear Diary to tie their thoughts together, to show that they had lots of the things that matter in common. Please review, I would love to know what you think before I carry on with this. Any suggestions would be very welcome.**


	2. Chapter 2

He had gone to ask Sohail about the Taliban raid on the school that morning and had taken her with him. Of course Sohail had denied all knowledge of the raid but he could see that Molly didn't believe Sohail any more than he did. He found her so easy to read, her eyes and her body language told him that she detested Sohail. It turned out that she had good reason as it happens, Sohail's demeanour was superior, bordering on downright rude when he spoke to her. He knew that it was not personal animosity towards her but the perception of male supremacy in their culture, but that didn't stop him wanting to smash his fist into the middle of the soldier's arrogant bloody face. He had had to content himself with glaring at him as they left the tent, because he was definitely not worth being up on a charge for.

He knew he was playing with fire thinking about her as Molly, but he couldn't help it. Thinking about her as Private Dawes was so difficult, although he was still managing to address her as Dawes when he spoke to her. He kept telling himself to think about her as if she was Bas or Nude-nut, even Mansfield, and that worked some of the time, or it did until he went to his cabin at night to relax on his own, away from potentially prying eyes, when she very definitely became Molly.

They were walking away from the ANA quarters and she was getting emotional about Bashira's future. He found it very endearing but concerning that she had become so deeply attached to this one little girl and was so worried about her future surrounded by the Sohails of this world. God, he hoped that Smurf was wrong about her, because if he was right and Bashira was involved with the Taliban, Molly would be devastated.

They were half way across the square when he stopped and stood over her and told her to repeat after him, word by word, "_Do…..not…..get…..in-fucking-volved!" w_hich she did, staring up into his eyes. Then he looked down into her eyes and told her that he needed her 100% by his side. She stared back, again straight into his eyes, and said she was 100% by his side, and his bloody heart rate was all over the place, racing and missing beats, the whole nine yards. He told himself that he must stop putting himself through this!

…..

There was a bit of nonsense next morning with Bashira's mother. She had demanded that Molly treat the kid's eye where her dad had walloped her. He had refused and quoted regulations and then Molly used emotional blackmail on him to let her do it. He had tried to order her not to, but then asked himself when the fuck did she take any notice of orders that she either didn't like or agree with, so he let her have her own way, anyway he had a feeling that she knew that he found it almost impossible to say no to her.

The kid then apparently said something that tipped Molly off about a raid tomorrow on the mountain CP. The Major was clearly convinced that it was kosher, but he was not so sure and was very reluctant to go with it. He was really worried that Molly would be incredibly vulnerable if she had misinterpreted the warning, if that is what it was, this kid was only 11 years old for fuck's sake. Anyway, however unsure he was of the wisdom of the enterprise, the Major was very keen so the decision was made that they would go for it, and she was right! Of course she was right! Why did he ever doubt her? He told himself that she's an acutely observant, very efficient and very astute soldier who is not only good at her job but incredibly kind, so of course the kid loved her and didn't want anything to happen to her. For fuck's sake, he loved her and didn't want anything to happen to her. He rapidly bought himself up short, no, of course he doesn't love her, she's not his girlfriend, it's just a little crush and she doesn't need him fretting over her every move.

Her treatment of an injured insurgent earned her praise from Major Beck and the 'powers that be' at Bastion, and he was so proud of her that he was sure that what he was feeling was written all over his face.

….

After the de-brief he had reminded 2 section of the entertainment the next night and that he would be singing a duet with a volunteer female soldier, of which there was a choice of one, who didn't look too pleased to be volunteered, but he was filled with happy anticipation, he wanted to sing with her, or rather what he wanted to do was to sing this particular song to her!

He wrote out the lyrics for her to learn, then waited for her to pass by on her way to her pit. He called her in and immediately realised how tired she looked, and because she was tired, how young and vulnerable she looked as she told him that she had been thinking. He knew she had been thinking about whether Bashira was in danger, so he rushed in to reassure her, to wipe the worry off her face and to send her to bed feeling happy and safe with everything okay in her world.

"_Piss off, Dawsey" _he really needed her to go, it was late, they had all been up for over 36 hours and he was tired and vulnerable as well, worried that he would do or say something stupid.

"_You just called me Dawsey, I must be winning you over with my incredible charm and magnetism"_ she grinned as she flounced out.

He stayed where he was, then laughed as he muttered to himself "_You could put it that way!"_

He was very glad that he was so tired, the more tired he was the more unlikely it was that he would dream. In his dreams he was always back home in bed in his parents' house in Bath, and not alone! He was finding these dreams more and more unsettling, physically ecstatic, but on waking, he would feel deeply disappointed to find that it had been a dream and that he was alone, even more lonely than he normally felt. The last time he had experienced this sort of thing he had been fifteen going on sixteen with a passionate crush on his best friend's twin sister. As far as he was concerned, It's okay for an hormonally charged teenager to experience this kind of thing, part of growing up, but he was nearly 29 for fuck's sake, had been married and divorced, had a son who was almost 7, had been in the army for years and was far too old to be having a huge crush on a soldier who was not yet 20. He wondered what she would make of it if she knew and shuddered, it didn't bear thinking about.

As it turned out, he had next to no sleep at all and therefore no chance to dream.

…_.._

What the fuck was she trying to do to him? He had aged ten years in the last 3 minutes which had been the longest of his life, and he was still trying to get his racing heart rate back to something approaching normal. Bashira's father was Taliban and had tried to punish the kid for her friendship with Molly by turning her into a suicide bomb. Everyone had been yelling at the kid to stand still and there was a very hyped up atmosphere with lots of weapon pointing and shouting and, in the middle of this, Molly had removed her helmet and body armour and started to walk calmly towards Bashira. He totally lost it! Started to shout and scream at Molly to stop and he could hear the panic in his voice as he ordered her not to go any further. It was the same panic that he had felt the day she went up on that winch with Smurf. Molly, of course, ignored the order and told him to stop shouting as he was scaring the kid. About 30 seconds after it was all over, after the vest had been removed, after Bashira had been taken away by the equivalent of social services and Molly was back with him, the bloody thing had detonated showing just how close a run thing it was, and he was totally fragged, unable to speak or move, barely capable of coherent thought.

…..

Some fragments of grit or something had gone into his eye from the explosion so he had to get her to wash his eye out. She stood touching his leg and leaning over his upturned face as she put saline drops in his eye, as he sat on the med bench, and trembled inside. He couldn't stop. Adrenalin, bought on by a mixture of intense fear, anger, relief and the fact that she was standing close enough to be inadvertently touching him had all combined so that he had got the shakes. She asked about Bashira and he told her he didn't do 'emotional involvement' which was just about the biggest lie he had told all year, but it didn't matter because he didn't think she believed him for a second. She was saying how lucky it was that Bashira hadn't been red-misted and he replied "_and you, Dawes"_ then totally gave himself away by saying_ "I would never have forgiven myself". _That was the point at which he realised that she was gazing straight into his eyes with an unreadably soft and gentle expression on her face and he had had his first tiny clue that she might, unlikely as it had seemed, just might, possibly, be feeling a tiny bit the same way as he did.

…

**Authors notes: This is designed to bring the two stories onto the same timeline as I want them to run concurrently, starting and ending at the same point.**

**Thanks for all the wonderful reviews. I am having an absolute ball writing this, so I hope you continue to enjoy it. Please review if you do. **


	3. Chapter 3

Everything had changed.

Okay, so he knew that nothing had really changed. A relationship between them was still completely out of the question, even supposing she wanted one, army regulations still forbade it, the age gap between them still made it a non-starter, he was still her boss, the difference in their ranks still made it a virtual joke, the list went on… But, for some reason the knowledge that at least some of his feelings for her were reciprocated made him feel a hell of a lot better. Yes, he had a massive crush on her, yes maybe he was even a little bit in love with her, well, maybe a lot actually, so he would have thought that that spark of mutual attraction that they had just experienced would have made the self control he had been struggling with for weeks even more difficult, but it didn't. Of course, her reaction may have been just that, a reaction to the extreme danger she had been in being over, but he was pretty sure that that wasn't the case. Looking back over the past couple of weeks there had been other occasions when their eyes had met and the look on her face, in her eyes, had softened. The thing was that he no longer felt like a deranged stalker or, even worse, a dirty old man lusting after a young girl, he was just very attracted to a beautiful young woman who, unbelievably, seemed to be attracted to him and he was sure he was going to be able to weather the storm and get back his balance.

Rehearsing for the duet bought him the most fun he could remember having for a very long time. She told them she couldn't sing, and there was no getting away from it, she was absolutely right! But she seemed to find the whole thing pretty bloody hilarious, which led to him finding it pretty bloody hilarious as well, and their gales of laughter, even Dangles was in hysterics, led to him shedding enormous loads of tension he didn't know he was carrying. He was worried for a minute that he might have hurt her feelings so he apologised to her, but she didn't seem to care, just carried on laughing. He decided at that point to spend a lot more time just enjoying her company, in a friendly way, and to try not to be so intense about her, to be more relaxed. The relief was overwhelming.

The performance itself was something else entirely. For a start she had tarted herself up so that, even allowing for the fact that he was totally biased, she was stunning. To him she was beautiful all the time, in her fatigues or her oversized football top, whatever, but in a skin tight black T shirt which showed off every inch of her body and with her glossy hair swinging around her face and wearing lipstick, she took his breath away and when he was standing close to her, he could smell some light flowery scent which, after the usual smells of the FOB, was absolutely gorgeous. His first thought was that If this is what she looks like when she goes out at home, she must be beating them off with a stick! And the joke with that was that he'd thought he was in with a chance! The lads were all hollering her name, especially Smurf, well he would be, wouldn't he? But she wasn't taking any notice of them at all, she was just beaming at him as they sang to each other and he winked at her a couple of times which made her beam even brighter, and no-one, least of all him, gave a flying fuck that she couldn't sing. When it was over he longed to hug her, maybe even kiss her. He didn't think she would mind, wishful thinking visiting once more, but he knew he couldn't without all sorts of questions being asked, questions for which he didn't have any appropriate answers.

He was just sitting and chatting with her a couple of evenings later, as part of his 'let's keep this friendly' resolution, when he saw the ideal opportunity to find out what the problem was at home. He had just told her about it being her turn for R&R and she looked less than thrilled at the prospect of two weeks at home, and had changed the subject pretty smartly. She asked him where home was for him and he said that he lived in Bath with mum and dad, and he had totally ignored the glaring opportunity to talk about Rebecca, his divorce and Sam. He told himself it was not something that would matter to her, why on earth would she be interested, there was no need to spoil the happy rapport they had built up and so on and so on. He was getting very, very good at lying to himself and he knew it! The long and the short of it was that he wanted to tell her but was afraid of her reaction, he was a coward who didn't want to spoil the happy bubble he was living in.

Their discussion about boarding schools and him missing his parents gave him the opening he was looking for as he asked about her dad. He was right, her dad is the problem. She froze him off immediately and was obviously not about to share any detail with him, and to be fair, why should she? He couldn't change anything, he couldn't 'fix ' whatever it was, regardless of how much he would like to, it was really none of his business which, for some reason, hurt.

So he changed the subject again and they began to talk about the Herrick Olympics. It was at this point he noticed Smurf was constantly criss-crossing the compound walking fairly aimlessly but checking them out with each pass. He would really love to ask her about her relationship with Smurf but, and he could be wrong, he actually didn't think there was one, but once again, that could have just been some more of that wonderful wishful thinking. He just didn't know and it was another thing that wasn't any of his business, mores the pity. He had begun to wonder, however, whether allowing her R&R to coincide with Smurf's had been one of his better decisions

The Herrick Olympics were a blast. Watching the section act as a team, supporting and encouraging each other and winning, albeit with a slight bending of the rules, was a huge amount of fun for everyone. It was hard to remember that it was only a short time ago that they had all ruthlessly excluded her and for him to face the fact that he had been one of the chief protagonists in what had been a very miserable start to her tour. He still cringed with shame when he thought about it. Today, everyone was cheering for her, except maybe the losing sections, but even some of them were yelling Molly on as she won the obstacle race. He was doing his fair share of yelling and got rewarded by a huge smile and the sight of his girl being held shoulder high wearing a pair of seriously cute Minnie Mouse ears. He wasn't sure when he had started thinking of her as his girl, she just was!

The day he had been dreading had arrived. She was going on R&R and he could not for the life of him imagine what had possessed him to put her down for 2 weeks away and with Smurf of all people! Okay, at the time he had wanted to give her a break from the dust, heat and tension of the FOB, but in reality he had been selfishly wanting some time without her being around so that he could get himself under control. Now he was going to have to live with that decision. She was sitting eating her coco pops, day dreaming as she stared into space, so he leaned over and stole a spoonful . "_Oi" _ she was obviously startled. "_Oh sorry boss I thought you was Sohail" _He knew that Molly had a real problem with Sohail in that she detested him, so he teased her a bit about whether 'putting his spoon in your bowl' was a euphemism but she said she didn't know what a euphemism was and he realised that he was flirting with her. He wondered whether he should speak to Azizi and get him to warn the soldier off and decided that he probably should, when Azizi called out to him to tell him that there was a problem at the mountain CP and they were going to have to investigate…

**Authors notes: Thanks for your lovely reviews and thanks to all the people who messaged me to tell me that there was a problem with Chap.2 uploading. I did try to rectify it myself, that's a joke in itself!, but as I hadn't a clue what I had done wrong it was not the easiest exercise. Had to wait for a 9 year old to come home who managed to shame me by fixing it immediately. I keep telling everyone that I am seriously challenged by technology, but that you can't be good at everything and I am world class at ironing.**

**Hope you are still enjoying Captain James struggles, love him as we do, please let me know.**

….


	4. Chapter 4

So that's what it felt like to have a major haemorrhage!

This morning's mission to the CP had been horrendous, the deaths of four young ANA soldiers at the guard post had been horrible, the knowledge that these four kids, and that's what they were, young lads, had been killed to make a point, to show that the Taliban or the insurgency or whatever they were labelled, could just take lives whenever or wherever they wanted, regardless of the actions of the Under-Fives or any other Nato troop. He could not see any other reason for the raid, there was not much, if any, strategic value in the mountain pass or the village, as far as he could see, the only reason for such a brutal attack was that they had foiled a similar raid some weeks ago and the Taliban could not let that go unpunished as the deaths of five insurgents at their hands would appear as a sign of weakness if it was not avenged. His heart bled for Captain Azizi, he knew how he would feel if those had been his men, and much as he tried not to think about it, his heart bled for Molly. The look of total horror on her face when she had been asked to confirm their deaths and the bleakness of her expression as she pronounced them dead was gut wrenching. She was going on R&R today but first she had had to deal with this and with the fact that one of them had been her mate Rolex boy. What a way to start an R&R!

He had told her repeatedly not to get so involved, but she forged bonds with people wherever she went as a matter of course and Rolex Boy was one of them. It was part of her nature and it was part of what made her so very endearing, the fact that she cared, but the long and the short of it was that that's what leaves you wide open to hurt and he desperately didn't want her to be hurt! He just wanted her to be happy.

The long trudge back to the FOB was very quiet, no-one had much stomach for piss-taking or banter of any sort. He would have liked to have walked with Molly to see whether he could make her face a little less forlorn and to wipe some of that bleakness from her eyes, but he was beaten to it by Quaseem who, he knew, had an exceedingly soft spot for her and was now talking quietly to her as they walked along. There was nothing extra he could have done to make her feel any better, apart from maybe putting his arms round her and giving her a hug and then holding her hand as they walked along. He smiled to himself, he could just see the lads' faces now, not to mention hers! He wondered fleetingly if he should be concerned about her relationship with Quaseem, then told himself not to be ridiculous, Quaseem looked on her as some sort of substitute daughter. The fact that he himself had such a huge crush on her didn't mean that every bloke she came into contact with felt the same as he did.

He left it half an hour or so then went to the med tent, ostensibly to tell her when the relief medic was arriving, so how long it would be before she would be on her way home, but in reality to see if she was okay and to spend some 'alone' time with her before she left. What the hell had he been thinking when he had put her name down on the rota for one of the places on the schedule of R&R? He could have easily left her off the list, marking her as too integral to the smooth running of the section to be spared for two weeks, two whole weeks for fuck's sake! What the hell was he going to do without her for two weeks? He told himself that he would do the same as he did every other week, be the Captain, be the boss, be in charge, keep everything organised, keep everyone safe and that he was going to have to do it without her being there, and all because when he had prepared the rota some weeks ago, he had thought that if he could get her out of his sight then he could get her out of his mind! How stupid could he be especially as he knew full well that she didn't want to go?

His breath caught in his throat as he ducked under the flap to the med tent and saw her drying her hair, obviously miles away, with her back to him and not wearing much at all and she looked beautiful! He thought for a second about leaving and then making a big noise as he came back in to alert her to his presence, but suppose she saw him go out and then come back in, what would she think? He turned his head away before he spoke to her so that she wouldn't be embarrassed by her skimpy clothing, nor would she get any clue that he had been drooling over her, which he had been.

In actual fact she was far too upset and worried about what had happened at the CP and about Bashira to worry about what she was wearing or what he would think. He did his level best to wipe away some of her sadness, to get her to focus on what she was good at and how Bashira would be fine. He couldn't say much about Rolex boy, he had had his doubts about the lad's true age, but he did his best to make her feel better.

Then he did something incredibly stupid! He touched her!

He started by asking her to get him some of his nespresso coffee capsules while she was in London and she teased him about getting the taxpayers to pay to get his machine to him which lightened the atmosphere a bit. He had had every intention of writing the name of the coffee on a post-it note with an indelible marker, then, for some ridiculously impulsive reason, mainly due to him wanting her to think about him while she was away, he knelt down next to where she was sitting, took hold of her wrist, turned over her arm and did Sam's trick of writing the name up her inner arm with the marker. He then followed up this act of stupidity by saying he would adore her forever and watched as her expression softened, an expression that he was sure was mirrored on his own face, as she asked _"Forever, Sir? _

He knew he should let go of her hand but he could no more do that than he could get up and leave the tent. He started to caress her fingers with his thumb, his normal sense of self-preservation and self-control having vanished in the instant he touched her to be replaced by a flood of emotion and desire, as he asked her to come back to him and experienced the twinges of an arousal that was totally forbidden to him. They intertwined their fingers as she said she would and that he shouldn't worry. They gazed at each other for hours or seconds, he had no idea how long, before Kinders brought him back to the real world with a bump! He knew that he had wanted to kiss her so badly that he probably would have thrown any remaining caution to the winds and done it given a few more minutes and that could, or would if he was being honest, have led to a great deal more than kissing, so all in all, he should be grateful to Kinders for the interruption, but he wasn't, he wanted to shoot him. He dropped her arm as if it was red hot and left the tent as if he had been the one to be shot!

What the hell had he been thinking of? She was out of bounds, forbidden territory, he was her boss for fuck's sake, and he had spent months trying not to think and feel this way about her, he must pull himself together while she was away, but first he had to get through her leaving.

He watched her walk towards him with bloody Smurf, laughing and joking with the lads over their shopping lists and he tried hard to pull all his remaining strands of self-control together for a few more minutes until she left, he was hating every single minute of this and it was all his own fault! She noticed immediately that Sohail was missing, she bloody would! He didn't want to tell her that the ANA soldier was AWOL, he knew that it would worry her that something might happen while she was away, but he had no choice, there were far too many people within earshot for him to tell her a quiet lie to reassure her.

Smurf immediately went into 'the only good Afghan is a dead Afghan' mode. He was still considerably concerned with Smurf's lack of self-awareness and his attitude towards the Afghans. He knew that he might have to look more closely at Smurf's 'fitness to serve' when he returned. He didn't want to, but he knew he might have to, for everyone's sake, including Smurfs. Smurf went off to the chopper but Molly desperately didn't want to go, she wanted to stay with him, for all sorts of reasons, exactly what he had known would happen. He shouldn't have touched her today, he had made it even more difficult than it already was and that was saying something, and he knew that that, combined with her fear about what Sohail might do, had left her completely vulnerable. He could see it in her eyes when she told him she couldn't go but he managed to say something about needing bloody coffee and that he was ordering her to go. He couldn't let her stay, much as he wanted to, it would be far too difficult to explain and it would be good for her to have a break away from the heat and dust and tension, and the replacement medic was on site.

So she left and he watched the girl he loved get on a bloody helicopter and leave him and he now knew exactly what it felt like to have a major haemorrhage.

**Authors notes: Don't you just love him? I want to hug him and tell him it'll all be fine and I'm the one writing it for goodness sake! Please tell me I'm not alone!**

**Hope you enjoyed this as much as I enjoyed writing it, please review for me, it keeps me going.**

**Many thanks to the member, you know who you are, who was lovely enough to tell me that it probably wasn't my finger trouble that caused the upload problems with chapter 2. My personal cockwomble always greets my cries for help with ""Why, what have you done wrong now?" so it was great to show him your e-mail, I love you to bits x **


	5. Chapter 5

His sense of loss was enormous. He had often heard the expression 'the bottom dropped out of his world', well now he knew what it felt like. She'd gone. Okay he knew she'd be back, but he'd spent the last two hours in a frantic whirl of 'keeping busy' and, if the sideways glances and raised eyebrows of the lads were anything to go by, he was driving everyone else insane. They were obviously wondering what planet he was on, but to hell with it, he was the boss, he could call the tune and be as unreasonable as he liked, he was in charge. Except he wasn't! Inside he was such a mass of misery that he felt like lashing out at someone, anyone. He pulled himself up short when he intercepted a very telling glance between Kinders and some of the lads, which told him that he had to pull himself together before they started to join the dots and make connections, they weren't all stupid! And he was being a total arse. He publicly asked the medic for an aspirin claiming he had a headache and tried his best to remain civil when she started questioning him. He tried not to resent her, after all, it wasn't her fault that she wasn't Molly and Molly would have questioned him as well, it was their job, except he would have told Molly to "Shut the fuck up" and she would have laughed. But, for fuck's sake, he hadn't got a headache and he didn't need a full medical for two bloody aspirin.

He was glad when it was time to hit his pit, when he could stop pretending that everything was okay, that he had just had a bit of a headache and had just been in a bad mood but that he was back to normal now. He was relieved that he could finally lie on his bed and think about her. It would take at least another 14 hours for her to be back at Brize, well maybe even 15 allowing for delays, and it was 22.00 here, so that meant that she still had bloody hours airborne with Smurf. God, he hoped she was okay. He knew that he would give anything at that moment to trade places with the Welshman, to be spending hours 'alone' with her, even on a bloody transport plane where they wouldn't be able to have any sort of conversation, but just to be with her would be enough.

God, this was ridiculous, he was supposed to be getting his act together. Constantly trying to work out the time differences and what she would be doing was going to drive him nuts by the time she got back. Okay, he would start tomorrow, taking back control over his life, after all he wouldn't be able to visualise her at home, he had no idea what home looked like or even where it was. He knew she came from east London, from somewhere near Upton Park football ground and for a few minutes he was tempted to 'Google' it, he had her address, but then he realised that that wouldn't make any bloody difference at all, she would still be half a world away and he would still be missing her. He knew that home meant Mum, Nan and lots of siblings and that Dad was presumably still there, even if she never talked about him, but that was all he knew, in fact, if thought about it, he knew very little about her at all. He wished he had spoken to her about her relationship with Smurf. Okay it was none of his business, he knew that only too well, and he didn't think she was involved with Smurf, well not in the way he tried to depict it anyway, and he didn't think that the expression on her face when she left that afternoon was an act, but he just didn't know and he was still very uneasy that she and Smurf were together and he was left here.

Morning bought P.T., breakfast, routine preparation and then patrols, business as usual with a conscious decision not to keep doing time checks between here and the U.K., but time was passing so slowly that he had to keep checking his watch to make sure that it hadn't stopped, as he asked himself why the hell time stands still when you are wishing it away. Keeping busy was the only answer so he began to tighten up on drills and procedures that had got a bit slack recently, working the lads so hard that they were now firmly convinced that he had totally lost the plot, either that, or he was expecting some massive problem with the Taliban in the near future that he wasn't telling them about. They were so convinced that they had even got Kinders to ask him, then disbelieved him when he denied that that was the case. The news came through that they were back to Bastion the day after Molly's return so that would make spending any time with her even more difficult, but on the other hand it gave purpose to the days that were left, packing up and getting ready to leave.

As time went on, he managed to spend more and more of his day back in control of his life, outwardly he was back to normal, very much the relaxed and confident CO they all knew, but internally he had become more and more aware of the drip feed of gossip and innuendo that was going on in the mess tent and during down times, all of it speculation about Molly and Smurf. He knew that they had opened a book on "will they, won't they" and that the odds were terrible on "will they", he seemed to be in a minority of one in thinking that it was a load of rubbish. He was tempted to put a stop to it by pointing out that Molly would be livid but decided not to as he was afraid he would give himself away. It came to a head for him one evening as he was eating dinner and half listening to some scurrilous comments, when he suddenly needed to get away from it, to shut it out, so he got up abruptly and, scraping half his meal into the waste bucket, marched out of the mess tent. He had only gone a few steps when he felt a light touch on his arm halting his flight, and Quaseem's soft voice saying quietly "_It's nonsense, don't take any notice, just ignore it."_ Quaseem patted his arm and walked away before he could marshal his thoughts enough to reply.

Oh fuck, Quaseem knew and who else? Actually Quaseem wasn't too much of a problem, he adored Molly and wouldn't do anything to hurt her, but Kinders? Or any of the others? Fuck, fuck, and double fuck! What was he going to do now? Nothing, there was nothing he could do. He began to wonder whether he was the one who was not seeing it clearly, were they, as the lads believed, an item? Were they at this very moment together somewhere? Was she 'with him'? Had she told Smurf about what happened in the med tent? Were they laughing about it? Everything he knew about her suggested that she wouldn't do any of that, but he was in a panic and as he had realised before, he didn't know her that well.

His dad had always said that if they cut him in half he would have army written through him, like a stick of rock, and his dad was right. He knew he was army through and through, had been all his adult life, full of rigid self control as he adhered to all the rules and regulations to the letter, but now as he lay on his bed, he began to wonder just why he was torturing himself like this, maybe he should just give into the longing he had for her, ignore the bloody regulations, and, always supposing she felt the same way, do what his heart and body craved, tell her how much he loved her. Then kiss her until they didn't know which was up, take her to bed and make love to her until they had a mutual explosion of pleasure, then sleep with her limbs entwined with his in his very small single pit! The big problem was that even if he tore the rule book up, he wouldn't give you tuppence for his ability to control himself and there was no supply of condoms in war zones, so the probable consequences would be career suicide for both of them, more than likely before they even got to Cyprus. What he needed to do was talk to her, where and when he had no idea, but he had to ask her somehow to wait for him until they got home, otherwise he was going to go insane.

The longest two weeks in history ended in the late afternoon.

He had been on pins all day searching the sky for the helicopter every time he had heard a sound even though he knew it was far too early. He was talking to Azizi when it finally arrived and he could hear the lads cheering and chirruping and taking the piss about what had supposedly gone on while they were at home, which of course Smurf was lapping up. He watched with envy as the lads hugged and kissed her, delighted to see her and grabbing their shopping out of her Bergen. He always forgot how tiny she was! He would have loved to have been able to greet her like that, instead he felt a bit awkward and shy, remembering the last time they had seen each other and not being sure what to say to her now she was finally back. She was doing the handover with Jackie when he went into the med tent to see her, still unsure about what he was going to say. Then, when Jackie left, she started to say that she was glad to be back, that she had wanted to come back and her eyes were smiling at him as everything started to sort itself out, as they began to chat and smile at each other, normality was returning, happiness was creeping in and he had begun to relax when Kinders burst his bubble.

"_You went to bloody Newport and you weren't even a hostage….."_

He saw her laugh as he looked at her with incredulity, she had been with Smurf in Newport, his worst nightmare had just come true in front of him, the gossip had been right and he couldn't get away fast enough. He couldn't look at her, couldn't speak to her, except to repeat what Kinders had said, then he turned and walked away. Oh, she tried to stop him as he walked across the square, tried to talk to him about it but he didn't want to listen, he just wanted to get away and be on his own. The pack of coffee capsules on his bed that night made him stop and think for a second about 'might have beens', but he did his best to shut his thoughts off as he contemplated the journey to Bastion next morning and how difficult it was going to be. He couldn't remember ever being so miserable.

The morning bought an uncomfortable niggle that maybe he had over-reacted slightly, that not letting her explain may have been a bit stupid, but he still avoided eye contact with her as they sat opposite each other in the troop carrier, he didn't know how to react to her anymore! Then it was taken out of his hands as once again she ignored a direct order! The body under the sheet in the middle of the road was dangerous, mined or booby trapped at the least, so he ordered her to wait as he walked slowly towards it checking for explosives as he went, when she ran up behind him and started to talk about quality time. Then she turned his life the right way up as she said that she hadn't been with Smurf, well not the way he thought anyway, and that his jealousy had made her think he cared and that he wasn't out of her league after all. She was the most beautiful and exciting girl he had ever met and she thought '_he' _was out of '_her' _league, what was she, nuts? She told him she loved him, or words to that effect and she wanted him to know in case they got blown up, then, as they got closer to the body and she got more and more scared, she asked him if he loved her? He was just about to tear the rule book up when Sohail, who was under the sheet, stuck his hand out and grabbed the Vallon, scaring them both shitless. He watched and was, once again, amazed at her ability to turn into a professional medic in a heartbeat as she fought hard to save the life of someone she had detested, someone who had treated her with an utter lack of respect.

She couldn't save him, his injuries were too severe so he died, but not before he told them that she had been the Taliban's intended target but that he had refused to kill her and that was why he was beaten to death. She was devastated and started weeping, but he was not sure whether that was because they had wanted her dead or whether it was that Sohail was dead for refusing to kill her. Either way, he wanted nothing more than to put his arms round her and hold her against him until she stopped crying then kiss some of the horror of the day away. He had to content himself with wiping away her tears and resting his head against hers, then telling her that they would talk tomorrow. He needed to think about what he would say, because to get everything out in the open without breaking regulations was some task!

They sat there looking at each other in silence as he felt a huge bubble of happiness build in his chest. She had started to apologise for what she'd said, but he was not convinced she meant it, he thought she was trying to fill the silence because it made her uncomfortable so he told her just how happy her words had made him then he told her how much he would like her to share his accommodation and then stopped, a bit horrified that he might sound like some dirty old man trying it on! He wanted to tell her that it wasn't only that he wanted to sleep with her, he wanted to be with her full time, that he was in love with her, that she had become the most important person in his world and to tell her all of this without saying any of it at all, so he could only say that there were so many things that he wanted to say and do and he wasn't allowed to and he hoped that she understood. He felt completely inadequate. Rehearsing hadn't really helped at all, words weren't enough, he badly needed to touch her, to hold her but instead all he could do was to ask her to wait out because of fucking army regulations and she said she would, but he had serious doubts about his own ability to stick to the rules. He said something stupid about it being hard because he didn't recognise the 'double entendre' until after he had said it, and he could feel himself blushing which was actually a blessing in disguise because it meant that they collapsed with laughter as he told her to "_piss off"_ so that they parted happy and pleased with each other. She blew him a kiss as she left, which made his day!

After she left, he began to calculate how much longer it would be before they got back to Brize, and he wondered if he could deduct the time they would be in Cyprus. It would be fantastic to take a long walk with her in Cyprus, to lose the prying eyes, to spend time on some secluded bit of beach, just the two of them and Cyprus had shops! He did his best to suppress the niggle of worry that had entered his brain, he still hadn't told her about Rebecca and Sam and the nearer they got to going home, the harder it was going to be! He needed to face it and stop putting it off, it wasn't going to go away.

**Authors notes: I wanted to create a picture of how he felt when she was away and what happened to provoke his very strange behaviour when she got back, both the awkwardness and the extraordinary over-reaction and jealousy when he heard she had been in Newport! It's always difficult to write about things that we didn't see because everyone has their own mental picture of what went on, i.e. 'the wait out chat' so if my version is miles away from yours, I'm sorry, but I can only go with how I imagined it would be. Thanks for your lovely reviews, please keep them coming, I really do appreciate them. **


	6. Chapter 6

He'd known it was going to be difficult to see her while they were at Bastion, but he hadn't appreciated just how difficult it was going to be, it was making the FOB look like paradise as far as that was concerned. Here, there were no opportunities to sit and chat, no med tent to go to for treatment for invented health problems, no possibility of walking next to her on a patrol, there were no patrols, there was no possibility of eating in the mess tent with her and the others, there were hordes of people around all the time and he had to eat with his fellow officers and socialise with them as well, and he missed her like hell.

The chat they had had about 'waiting out' had been almost totally unsatisfactory as far as he was concerned, he didn't think he had managed to tell her how he felt at all. Yes, they had parted happy with each other, well he was happy with her and he had thought she was happy with him at the time, but now he kept thinking of things he could have said to make it much clearer how he felt without breaking the regulations, but then he found that often happened to him, that he would think of the ideal answer or saying or whatever, hours after the conversation had finished. They also hadn't really touched on what they meant by 'waiting out' and judging by the expression on Molly's face just now, she wasn't too happy with him at all and he had no idea why. All he could think of was that he had upset her in some way, said or done something or not done something but he couldn't think what or how or when and he couldn't just go and ask her as he could have done at the FOB. This was not easy! He wondered if it could be because he hadn't managed to get her moved to the female quarters yet, he had mentioned it to Beck but the Major had quite rightly pointed out that she has shared with the lads at the FOB with no problems, so what was the issue now? He could hardly give the honest answer which was that he loved her and he wanted her away from the lads at night.

He had a couple of minutes to talk to her today and he was sure he was right that he hadn't explained himself very well in his office as the expression on her face had changed from sullen and sulky to a beam of joy when he told her his plans for Cyprus. He was actually surprised to see her pulling a sulky face, he'd never seen it before and he had thought he had a monopoly on sulking, or at least that was what Rebecca used to accuse him of and thinking about Rebecca gave him a cold sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. How the hell was he going to tell Molly about Rebecca? He had ignored so many suitable opportunities to drop it into the conversation so that it was now going to look as if he'd been keeping it a secret, which, to be fair, he had. When was he going to tell her? He couldn't do it now, because if she was upset he couldn't do anything about it, and he needed time alone with her when he told her, he didn't want to do it in Cyprus, he wanted that to be full of a different kind of emotion altogether and he couldn't wait to get to Brize to tell her, because if his mum brought Sam to meet him, it would be a disaster. He wasn't too worried about telling her about Sam, Molly loved kids, she loved her brothers and sisters and she loved Bashira, no, it was Rebecca that was the problem, a problem that he had created by being a coward and putting it off. What exactly he was going to say was a whole different matter or 'ball bag' as Molly would say.

There had been a worrying development that afternoon, the Americans had approached Beck about Molly helping the ASF to identify Badrai when they traced him and Beck had then discussed it with him. His immediate and instinctive response had been "Not a chance, over my dead body" and then had had to reign in his reaction as he realised that Beck wasn't stupid, so he told him that the section wasn't fit enough to do any kind of mission and that he couldn't single Molly out for fitness training without scaring her, maybe unnecessarily as the mission might never happen. He told Beck he would start immediately with the whole section upping their level of fitness just in case, but he was filled with an overwhelming sense of dread at the thought of Molly having anything whatsoever to do with this exercise. One thing he was absolutely determined about was that she was not doing this on her own, if she went then he was going as well.

!0 k run with a bunch of disgruntled squaddies was not the greatest way he could think of to spend an evening, especially as one of the most disgruntled was the girl he loved! He knew they were resenting every minute of it but that he had to keep it going and that they didn't understand for a second why he was making them do it, and he couldn't tell them. As far as they were concerned they were safe inside Bastion and they had no need to be doing something so bloody uncomfortable, especially Molly who kept shooting him glances of bewilderment as if she was not sure what he was on. He couldn't tell her what it was all about and why it was so important that she, especially, got as fit as possible in the short time remaining before a mission she knew nothing about, so he yelled encouragement and threatened to put the last one over the line on latrine clean, knowing that Molly would probably need to make an extra effort to avoid being last, and if looks could kill he would have died on the spot!

Worst possible news that morning, he had had a meeting with Beck and Major Morley, who was a typical yank, all gung ho, he thought sourly, and who was liaising with the ASF, and apparently they have traced Badrai and the ASF were getting ready to launch a mission to apprehend him. They don't want him dead because they want to extract as much information as possible from him, and they want to second Molly to help them. He swallowed his initial reaction and felt Beck look at him curiously when he insisted that he was going to accompany her, that she was not going on her own. He had asked Kinders to brief her, he didn't trust himself not to tell her that is was okay, she only had to say "no" and they could forget the whole bloody thing. Molly, being Molly, hadn't said no, of course she hadn't, so now he had to watch her put herself in incredible danger once again, although he was not going to let her out of his sight and he would focus all his efforts on her safety.

He was watching her finish her breakfast and chat with Quaseem when she caught sight of him and bounced across to talk to him, all full of smiles and happiness as she attempted to flirt with him. Her timing was dreadful, he would have loved to flirt with her but he had to get her ready for the mission he was not happy about, so he responded to her flirtatious comment with "ditto" which really didn't go down well at all, in fact she was horrified at his lack of a romantic response. He reminded her that they were 'waiting out' but he didn't think she understood what he was trying to say, which was that he couldn't afford to take his mind off the ball, that much as he loved her, he had to put his feelings to the back of his mind and concentrate on this mission. She obviously decided that he had changed his mind about them, that he thought that they were a mistake, and he couldn't answer her because of course he hadn't and of course they weren't, he just couldn't allow himself to be distracted by his personal feelings, to get sidetracked into talking about them, when it was vital that he controlled his emotions and concentrated on the matter in hand because he needed to focus 100% on keeping her safe.

As he sent her off to get ready he could see she was upset and he realised that he hadn't told her that he was going with her, maybe he could reassure her while they were on the mission, but if he was going to be able to do that he had to do it without losing sight of where his focus must be.

**Authors notes: I know that there was not a lot of input from the Boss in these scenes in the show, but I wanted to set the scene for his reactions in the next scenes where he started to behave like a bit of a 'tit' again and I feel the need to defend him, can't for the life of me imagine why, can you? Thanks for all your lovely reviews, please keep me going !**


	7. Chapter 7

She was scared, it was written all over her face and she even admitted it to him, which was very unusual for Dawes, she hated to admit weakness of any kind, but even though she was terrified she still said she could manage without him! Well, she might have thought she could manage, and she may have been right, but he was bloody sure that he couldn't let her go on her own, there was no way he was letting her out of his sight. He needed to keep her safe and he didn't trust anyone else to do it. He wasn't sure why she was avoiding eye contact with him in the carrier, he was willing her to look at him so that he could try and give her some reassurance by a look or a smile, but she was studiously avoiding looking at him so it was obvious that she had misinterpreted their exchange outside the mess hall, God, he was losing count of the number of times they had misunderstood each other. The ASF were their usual incompetent selves, no Badrai, of course not, and one of the insurgents was allowed to get close enough to wallop Molly in the face, sending her flying and cutting her lip. Her face was plastered with blood and he couldn't comfort her or do the thing he most wanted to do, which was to smack the guy in the face, not the insurgent who had hit her, but the ASF cretin who had allowed it to happen. Not for the first time he had to restrict himself to a glare!

He told Morley that 2 section needed to be part of a joint exercise if Dawes was going to carry on with this madness, God, how difficult was he finding it to think of her as Dawes? but he had to if he was going to maintain his control over himself, and it was going to be over his dead body that she was put in danger again. The lads would help protect her. Morley had them return to the detention centre because the insurgent who had hurt her was mouthing off about it all being her fault and they couldn't get him to identify himself or give them any information on Badrai although it was obvious he knew him and not for the first time he was blown away by the fact that Dawes really was something else! He had tried to tell her not to confront the insurgent but she was having none of it, she was determined to sit opposite him and find out why he was blaming her, mainly because she had heard him mention Bashira's name and he knew she would never be able to resist her need to know about Bashira! Turns out he knows all about Badrai and Bashira, he is Badrai's son and Bashira's brother and then he had the bloody nerve to sit there and blame Dawes for all the problems in that family, problems that were caused by his father belonging to the Taliban and involving his kid in a suicide bomb bid and some medieval tradition of avenging honour by killing his daughter, and, horrendous as that was, his son was going along with the idea as a reasonable and acceptable action, bloody hell! He seemed to think that his father was going to find Bashira and kill her and that it was all Dawes' fault for befriending the kid, unbelievable!

Morley reckoned Badrai was in the mountains but had a cache of explosives and would be making his way to Kabul, so 2 section would help the ASF grab him and put a stop to his nonsense once and for all. Poor Dawes was in bits, of course she was, she was absolutely distraught because she blamed herself for all of it, and he knew that that was just what that bloody little insurgent intended to happen. She had convinced herself that it was her fault that Bashira has been in so much danger ever since she made friends with her. It's wasn't, of course it's wasn't, if anything it was his fault for allowing Dawes to get so close to her. All Dawes did was her best to give the kid a chance at a better life and to stop her father killing her for some warped ideology! He was horrified to realise that she not only blamed herself for Bashira, but for Badrai and his son, for Sohail, and for the fact that 2 section would be going on a dangerous mission, so he bundled her into his quarters, he couldn't bear for her to go on feeling that way, especially as it wasn't true. He knew now that her compassionate way of looking at things had acted as a wake-up call for him, had changed his assessment of what they should have been looking to achieve , had made him engage the brain that had been in cold storage as he had blindly followed orders without questioning them. As he began to get through to her, to show her he was proud of her, that she should be proud of herself, his feelings got the better of him and she became Molly again in his head, not Dawes. He hadn't been alone with her for weeks, and he forgot all the crap about keeping things professional and began to think and talk about what would happen when they got home, about Bath and his parent's home and Christmas and about him not being her boss anymore, a day that couldn't come quickly enough for him. He was desperately fighting the urge to kiss away the tears that were still on her face, he knew he still needed to keep his wits about him for this sodding mission, when someone started knocking at the door and calling him. Smurf, it bloody would be!

It was probably crazy to hide Molly in his wardrobe while he got rid of Smurf, but she didn't want Smurf to see her tear-stained face and he wanted to carry on talking to her, making her feel better, but he had to find out what Smurf wanted first. At first he hadn't a clue what Smurf was rambling on about, his mum and some letter and some ring and getting things sorted before the mission, and then Smurf dropped his bombshell, that he was planning on asking Molly to marry him, that he actually believed that there was a definite possibility that she would say 'yes'. Of course she wasn't going to say 'yes', she didn't have that kind of relationship with Smurf, she didn't love Smurf, she loved him, didn't she? To make it worse she was listening and he couldn't say what he wanted to say, so he turned himself into a complete hypocrite of a senior officer and told him to stop thinking and talking like that, it was inappropriate and dangerous and he would have to send him home if he kept on, while all the time he was yelling inside "_Sorry Smurf, you can't have her, Molly's mine". _

Smurf was almost out of the door when he holed him beneath the water line.

"_Sorry Boss, I only wanted some advice, how did you propose to your wife?"_

Oh fuck, and Molly was listening! This had always been a disaster waiting to happen, and he couldn't blame Smurf, this was all of his own making, he had been telling himself for months to tell her about Rebecca and Sam, why had he been such a fucking coward? Look where it had got him, no matter what he said now it was always going to look as though he had kept his marriage a secret, which he had, but what were his motives going to look like now? What was Molly going to think was the reason he hadn't told her? Well, it didn't take a genius to work that one out! He got shot of Smurf and 30 seconds later Molly barrelled out of his wardrobe, out of his quarters and, probably, out of his life, she didn't speak to him, she didn't look at him, she didn't need to, she just left him, of course she did, and he couldn't have stopped her if he'd tried, as far as she knew, he'd lied, lied and lied again.

He pulled himself together and followed her trying to find a way of explaining and of course, he ended up sounding all wrong as though he was blaming her in some way for allowing personal to be involved with professional, what was he saying? None of this was her fault, it was his! She accused him of lying to her in a hard, brittle, and hurt voice and he told her he hadn't lied, he was separated, but even that wasn't true, he was divorced, had been for months, so why say separated? Was he trying to make things better or worse? She said that even if he hadn't lied he had been pretty economical with the truth, and she was right, he had, much as he regretted it now! The next knife wound was inevitable, she sort of asked about kids and he couldn't answer, so there was her answer. She marched away from him looking as though she was fighting back tears and his world fell apart.

He knew he had a briefing shortly and would have to face her in a crowded room when all he wanted to do was to find some private spot, which were pretty thin on the ground at Bastion, and to tell her everything, tell her how he feels about her, why he didn't tell her about Rebecca and Sam, what he wants in the future, but even if that were possible, he was sure that she more than likely wouldn't listen and they had a mission to carry out, a dangerous mission, before he could relax and tell her what was in his heart.

**Authors notes: Thanks for all your lovely reviews, please keep them coming, they reassure me that people are still reading this!**


	8. Chapter 8

He felt worn out. Everything had gone to shit in the last couple of hours leaving him exhausted and the adrenalin of the mission hadn't yet kicked in so that even simple things had become a huge effort and he was asking himself how the hell it had come to this. He had been in the army for nearly ten years, he was experienced, he was a Captain with a massive responsibility for keeping a bunch of squaddies, most of them not much more than teenagers, safe in a fucking war zone and he had spent almost the whole of this tour with his head filled with need or desire or whatever it was, a crush, for one tiny, beautiful green-eyed teenager. Because that was what she was, however hard he tried to bend the facts in his head, she was too young for him. Smurf was a far better fit for her, he was the right age and from the right sort of background and he appeared to care for her, but the thought of the two of them together filled him with a mixture of horror and rage and desperate misery. He had been two people throughout this tour. On the outside he had been the same officer he'd always been, calm, controlled and reasonable, stern when he needed to be and with occasional flashes of sarcasm, but always with a sense of humour, but on the inside he had been in absolute turmoil, flipping between pure delight and total despair depending on this one girl, and he wasn't used to it. No-one had ever affected him like this before and now he had messed it up comprehensively because he had been a coward. He couldn't help thinking that it was lucky they didn't yet employ mind readers in the army, he'd be totally fucked!

The briefing went exactly as he had expected it to, she had a mask of cold indifference on her face and had made absolutely sure that she made no eye contact with him, concentrating all her attention on the American and then looking down or over his shoulder when he was speaking. He knew from her face that she had been crying, he could read her expressions like a book, he should be able to he had spent enough time studying her, so despite her attempt to look icily unconcerned, he knew she was hurting and it was all his fault and he was terrified it would send her into Smurf's arms, they were sitting together again.

Ingrained habit, training, experience and his professional mind-set all kicked in when the mission started and his focus became the effectiveness of the task and their safety as they began the trek through the drainage ditch to the CP. He knew she was scared so he tried to reassure her that his focus was still on getting her home in one piece whether she hated him or not. That hadn't changed. The explosion that scared everyone shitless came before they had completed more than a couple of hundred metres and his instant, instinctive response to danger had been to check that she was okay. Their eyes had met and he realised that her instant response had matched his, the fact that she couldn't switch it off completely, any more than he could, made him feel just a tiny glimmer of hope that once they got to Cyprus he would be able to talk to her and tell her all the things he hadn't been able to so far. The relief they had all felt when they realised that they were under attack from nothing worse than a thunderstorm had been enormous and he realised that he had just seen Molly smile for the first time in hours.

Sitting and waiting out for the moment when the action would start seemed, as usual, endless and, in a way, he was glad that Molly had chosen to sit on her own in the small room adjoining the main one, it would have been difficult to sit in close proximity to her while she was blanking him and he was trying to maintain focus, but all his instincts screamed 'NO' when he saw Smurf get up and go into the room where she was alone. He tried to ignore the impulse to get in there and stop them being alone together but he couldn't and he couldn't ignore the compulsion to try and put things right between them, this hurt way too much and rules and regulations suddenly seemed not nearly as important as he had always believed.

"_Sod off, Smurf and leave us alone"_ wasn't exactly appropriate, even though that was what he wanted to say, so he waffled a bit and gestured with his head for Smurf to leave them then found himself at a loss as to how to start telling her what he wanted her to hear, especially as he was talking to the back of her head, so he told her about Sam and how he was part of his life and how he had always wanted to tell her but he hadn't found the right time to do it. Her voice was brittle and angry as she told him he had really hurt her, so he confessed what was in his heart, that he had only ever wanted to make her happy. Her accusation that he had fucked that up big time came as no surprise, he already knew that he had, so he stepped over the line he had drawn and was honest about how he had felt in that ditch when the thunder had frightened them and how she was the only thing that mattered to him. She was staring up at him with wide doe eyes swimming in tears as he spoke almost in a whisper that she was the last thing he wanted to see and he felt all his caution fly out of the window as she murmured "_ditto_", so he kissed her. It was a soft, gentle kiss, one that was full of promises and full of promise and one that filled his heart with a longing to get the rest of this mission finished, get the rest of the tour completed and get to Cyprus where he could spend time with her.

The search of the back of the lorry was under way when Smurf appeared to disintegrate, totally losing control of himself, shooting a farmer's goat then threatening to shoot the farmer, ranting about all manner of disjointed things, Geraint, him, how he had stolen Molly, and how Smurf had seen and how he'd let Smurf down, so that he had been desperately ordering him to put his gun down. Suddenly he had heard Molly panicking and shouting at him that it was Badrai as she ran towards him and that they had to take cover, but there was no cover and no time to do anything. The first bullet knocked him off his feet as it hit his stomach below his bullet proof vest, the pain was instant and immense and the second bullet shattered his lower leg in a burst of unbelievable agony and suddenly she was there bending over him trying to keep him with her, willing him to stay with her as she did her best to stop him bleeding to death from his stomach wound at the same time as she was treating Smurf for a wound to his arm. He knew he had to apologise to her for something, he didn't know what but he kept trying to say ""sorry" as she started to fade away from him and no matter how hard he tried to cling on, she disappeared.

**Authors notes: I am glad I know what happens next otherwise I'd be in bits! Hope I've managed to capture some of the emotion of these scenes. Thanks for all the lovely reviews, please review to let me know if you are still reading this because it is what keeps me going.**


	9. Chapter 9

There were huge blanks in his memory, all he knew was that he kept waking up to a world of unbelievable pain and nausea and worry, where he was being kept alive with drugs and drips and he couldn't remember what had happened and why he was so worried about Molly and he wasn't sure where he was, he didn't know where she was and even though people kept telling him not to worry, he knew they were wrong.

The first good day he had was when the nurse told him there was someone waiting for him to wake up and that she had been there all night and he looked through the glass and saw her anxious little face break into a smile and they let her in . She had Smurf with her, but he had no clue what he had said to him he just wanted him to go, Smurf was not high on his list of priorities at that time, he just wanted to be alone with Molly. They were only alone for a few minutes when Rebecca and Sam arrived, he was weary of trying to put on an act for Sam, not that he didn't want to see him, he did, but you can't let a small boy like him see their Dad in pain and sick, so he wished Rebecca would take Sam away and let him be honest as to how he felt to Molly and let her comfort him, however selfish that was. Her comfort was what he wanted most in the world. Instead of that Molly left, she was obviously uncomfortable around Rebecca, and he wanted to cry.

It was afternoon when she came back, she had to go to barracks with the rest so she came to see him before she left, sitting on his bed and holding his hand, so he tried to explain about Rebecca, that they were long over and that Rebecca had wanted him to leave the army, but he hadn't wanted to. She tried to apologise to him for his being shot on that bridge, but he had to make her understand that it wasn't her fault, none of it was her fault, it had been his responsibility to keep her safe, keep them all safe and he had fucked up, risked her life, risked all their lives and because of that he was going to resign his commission, leave the army. He wanted her to understand that she had changed his life, that she was way more important to him than the army but he didn't know if he had made much sense, he was still feeling very weak and weary, but he did know that they didn't have to wait out any more.

He had phoned her to invite her to Bath for a proper date, just the two of them, no Kinders, no Smurf, no 2 section, just them, on their own and she had said yes, and he had then gone through agonies of doubt, would she turn up? would she still want to be with him? would they still like each other? The day of the date went by agonisingly slowly, he was back to being the nervous fifteen year old going out on his first date with his major crush, in fact when he looked back, he had spent most of the last seven months in a state of nervous anticipation and today was the day he was finally going to have her all to himself, even if it was in a crowded restaurant, and he couldn't wait. He got there far too early and had to sit and wait for ages, getting more and more nervous as he convinced himself that she wasn't going to turn up. In the end she was slightly late, but it didn't matter. Nothing mattered as soon as she walked into that restaurant and he saw her beautiful, happy smile and knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that he loved her and that they were going to spend the rest of their lives together and that he had never been happier in his life. He couldn't actually remember what they had talked about, he knew he had told her his name and more importantly that he loved her, apart from that they had been having two conversations, the more important one without any words at all, just with their eyes.

She stayed the night with him and it was, quite literally, the best night of his life. It was the culmination of months of longing and making love to her was the magic experience he had always dreamed it would be. He hardly slept even though he was exhausted, he just wanted to watch her sleep next to him, he had always thought she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen and had dreamed of her being in his bed whilst they were in the FOB, but the reality totally surpassed that dream. She was a bit overawed by his parent's house until he joked that he was a squatter who was free-loading off them and she giggled. They made plans to repeat the whole experience the following weekend, only this time she wouldn't book a Travelodge, no need, she would come to the house and they would go out and do something, or stay in, depending on his leg and then spend the night there, and for the first time he was secure in his conviction that nothing could stop this relationship developing the way he had longed for when they were in Afghan, that they were starting to build a future together, one step at a time, a future he was ecstatic about.

He was wrong, it never happened, he lost her!

Smurf dropped dead while he was with her in London and everything went to shit. She was suddenly completely out of his reach, locked in deep distress and so distant at Smurf's funeral that it was breaking his heart, it was as if the night they had spent together had never happened, and he didn't know why . She had already signed up to go back to Afghan, which he remembered saying was a good idea when they were eating in a restaurant, but was a totally different proposition now it was happening, and he knew he had lost her, and he had never told her what was in his heart. He had thought he had all the time in the world to tell her how he felt and then it was all gone, so he decided to write to her and tell her how he felt, not to change anything but just to stop the pain of never having said the things he felt, the 'if onlys'.

_Dear Molly,_

_We didn't talk much last time I saw you, it was all so sad, and I couldn't find the right words, and I'm sorry about that. First of all, I love you, I fell in love with you way back when we were at the FOB, in fact I think I fell in love with you the first time I ever saw you and I miss you dreadfully and I am totally sad that I'll miss you for the rest of my life, because you won't be here. There will be a Molly shaped hole in my life forever._

_I know that I got it wrong, that I didn't let you see what you meant to me when we were on tour, that I put stupid rules and regulations ahead of my feelings for you so that I didn't give off the right signals to let you know how important you were or rather are to me and that I freaked you out when we got home because I was so desperate to make up for lost time. The night you stayed with me was the best night of my life and I wish I had gathered the courage to tell you all this to your face. There is no need for you to reply or feel guilty or anything, I just wanted you to know the things that are in my heart and that I was too much of a coward to tell you back then._

_Please take care of you, I want to be able to think of you as healthy and happy, and most of all, safe, I will never forget you. _

_Charlie xx_

She came back to me and I was right, we will spend the rest of our lives together, I love her.

**Authors notes: I have loved writing this, I am sorry that we have reached the end. Thanks for all your reviews, they are lovely and they make all the difference. I would love to know what you think of the last chapter, I am especially keen to know what you think of his letter, it occurred to me that he had never told her anything that he felt, except for telling her he loved her, once. New story starting probably Saturday, so will be back!**


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